A reader writes:
I disagree with your reader who says Palin is a bullshitter. I kind of like bullshitters. I consider someone like Bill Clinton to be a bullshitter. Kind of smooth, kind of full of one's self. In my mind, Palin is a disturbed individual who does not live in a world where truth as a concept is relevant or even extant. She is wholly a creation of the media because she has a sexy quality to her good looks (especially in an industry - politics - that has few beauties). Her only cleverness is that she uses her child with Down's Syndrome as the entire basis of her being as a politician. Sorry to put it so crudely, but that is the thing that the hard right loves about her. (In fact, she recounts how she considered abortion but decided against it. As a mother, I find that little story so disgusting. Why would a mother ever openly discuss that they thought about aborting her child? Or her defender, Bernie Goldberg, implying that a liberal would abort a Down's Syndrome child. Even more disgusting.)
Some people who are not on the hard right like her for other reasons - especially because she is a working mother of five. They relate to her, and I think that is valid.
What is missing is that she has no substance. She is an empty vessel. In our reality show, 24-hour news cycle world, one can be an empty vessel and still be wildly popular as a reality star, a politician, or whatever. No one questions beyond the surface, and indeed it is politically incorrect to even imply that she is not bright. If you are Kate Gosselin, then I have no problem with you being wildly popular and stupid (not that Kate is stupid). If you want to lead my country, then I do have problems with you being popular and stupid. (And, honestly, I am sick to no end of having leaders that are so dumb that the stock observation made about them is that they are not as dumb as we think.)
So, for anyone who thinks you or others are wasting their time dissecting this woman and her "views," then I have one number for them. 46. That is the percentage of voters that wanted Sarah Palin to be President of the United States. What would that number be today? With a media that has gone nearly wholesale against Obama, with a progressive movement that is enabling Palinites through relentless and often self-righteous fault-finding, with an almost silent group of Obama defenders, with a reality show obsessed culture, it is plausible that the 46 % could add the paltry 5% it needs to rule the world.
Doesn't that chill you to the bone?